Novel Idea of the Week: the “Eggschange”

Here is how I (and most people I have observed) buy a carton of eggs:

1. Select a carton.
2. Open the carton and check every egg in it.
3. If a broken egg is found, open another carton, and exchange the bad egg for a good one.
4. When finished, put the intact dozen in your cart. Leave the carton with broken eggs on the shelf to inconvenience the next egg shopper.

The flaw in this is obvious: the way step 4 feeds step 1. Step 1 should actually read: “select a carton into which someone has placed a broken egg.” My question is: why do grocery stores allow this? When any other damaged merchandise is found, it is removed from the shelves. Except with eggs, apparently.

Here’s an idea to fix this: the store sets up an “eggschange,” an organized method for getting rid of the broken eggs without putting them into a future patron’s carton. Imagine two bins. One is for cartons that have already been used for spare parts; one is for cracked eggs. Now, it works like this:

1. Select a carton.
2. Open the carton and check every egg in it.
3. If a broken egg is found, throw the broken egg into the discard bin.
4. Take a replacement egg from the eggschange. If there are no eggs in the eggschange bin, take any other new carton. Remove a good egg, then place the carton with the remaining 11 into the eggschange.
5. Go your merry way without having inconvenienced the next egg shopper.

Someone store somewhere may be doing this, but I’ve never seen it. Grocers: have at it. Fix this, no credit to me is necessary.